From Ishay Landa’s “The Apprentice’s Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism”
This book seems pretty good, I’m only a few pages in, but so far going well
I’ve gotten a lot of value out of mentioning the fascist party in Brazil was the “Social Liberal Party” and the fascists in Japan are the “Liberal Democratic Party”
excerpt from aimixin responding in r/redskilledtrillions to the “nazis were socialists, it’s in the name” canard:
“…the Nazi state — unlike the Soviet Union to which it is sometimes compared — refrained from the widespread nationalization of industry…Available sources make perfectly clear that the Nazi regime did not want at all a German economy with public ownership of many or all enterprise…. On the contrary the reprivatization of enterprises was furthered wherever possible.”
— “The Role of Private Property in the Nazi Economy”, The Journal of Economic History
They mass privatized, in fact the word “privatization” was literally coined by The Economist to describe Hitler’s policies. The only faction in the Nazi party that opposed mass privatization was the Strasserite faction. This is what Hitler told Otto Strasser when he proposed nationalization of industry to Hitler.
“It’s Marxism!..In fact, it’s Bolshevism! Democracy has laid the world in ruins, and nevertheless you want to extend it to the economic sphere. It would be the end of German economy. You would wipe out all human progress, which has only been achieved by the individual efforts of great scholars and great inventors.”
— Quoted by Otto Strasser, “Hitler and I”
Hitler would then go onto purge that faction during the Night of the Long Knives, killing Gregor Strasser and Otto having to flee the country.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
— Martin Niemöller
Literally the only argument people have for them being “centrist” is “iT’s iN tHe nAmE!” but the term “socialist” was added to the party’s name against Hitler’s own wishes.
“Meanwhile, on February 20, 1920, the German Workers’ Party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeitpartei, called the NSDAP or Nazi Party). Hitler did not like the addition of the term “Socialist” but acquiesced because the executive committee thought it might be helpful in attracting workers from the left.”
— Samuel Mitcham, “Why Hitler?”
When later ask to justify the “socialist” label, Hitler just redefines socialism to a government that cares about regular people, but is also an ethnostate, and is not in contradiction to private property. Hitler even says that with his definition of socialism, “we might as well have called ourself the Liberal Party”.
"Socialism is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists. Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic. We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one.”
— Hitler, Interview by George Viereck
here’s a paper from the University of Barcelona on nazi privatization and how it was one of the first and largest sprees of mass privatization of state assets in modern history
Spoilers: Strasser would be assassinated shortly afterwards, killing along with him any pretense of the “social” aspects of Nazism as an ideology
I guess the problem wasn’t just the word “socialist,” but the socialists as well
i knew that looked familiar.
that book was a revelation for me when i read it years ago, before i had gotten into left politics and exposure to the idea of fascism as capitalism in decay. it completely blew my yet unchallenged conceptualization of liberalism apart. i had a real hard time explaining it to my friends at the time, who were/are still a bunch of :LIB: s
Commenting to save the rec for later
